October242017

October212017

Hey dudes this is a FREE extension I just finished for Windows after ages and ages of reverse engineering of Painttool Sai. It provides thumbnails for the .sai file type from right within explorer so you can preview the contents of .sai files and it even works for .sai files within folders like this folder full of .sai files and with Window’s built-in preview panel

October182017

This theme is named after Miyamura Izumi, one of the main protagonists in Horimiya. I binge-read up to the latest chapter in a day, haha. It’s a really cute shoujo manga!! 10/10 would recommend (ᅌᴗᅌ* )

Features —

16 color options

Custom post width from 350px to 540px

Optional post borders

Timeline inspired sidebar(?): includes an about section with up to 5 rows of content; 2 optional sections for you to input extra information; home, ask, and archive links + up to 6 custom links; custom title; optional timeline sectors (the horizontal lines); custom timeline dividers/markers (dots by default) with adjustable sizing and positioning; and a circular/rounded/square 50px icon

You can choose to have the timeline fixed but if you’re going to use all of the timeline boxes provided I would strongly recommend turning off this option in order for the theme to be compatible on all screen resolutions.

Back to the top button

Reblog and via links

Show/hide description, tags, and captions

Pagination only

A like or reblog would be appreciated if you are planning to use this theme! Please direct all your theme related questions to nemurou.

CREATING YOUR COMIC

Now that you have the template, use it to plan out your comic. Keep all text and artwork away from the red areas, and keep all panels and text bubbles inside of the blue areas.

Things You Can Include In Your Comic (other than the comic itself):

Info/Details about the artist (You) and where readers can find them online

Artist’s Notes in the front or back of your book

Extras in the back of your book, like mini comics, doodles/sketches, or even fanfiction

(Note on Making it Full-Bleed:I DO NOT recommend attempting to make your comic full-bleed by trimming edges and whatnot, as it takes a lot of extra time and effort, and could possibly botch up a lot of copies due to trial and error. For the sake of this tutorial, I suggest keeping your art inside the blue areas and avoid keeping it from going off the page. Your best bet for having a nice looking full-bleed book is going through an online book printer, which might not even be an option for you if you’re making an 18+ doujinshi, since nearly 99% of western book printers will not print porn or anything that sorta LOOKS like it.)

SHADING TIPS

If you are using screen tones to shade your work, it is crucial to make sure that you willNOT be doing any resizing after you put down your tone. All resizing of your ink work, the image itself, or any size adjustments should be done BEFORE you put down your screen tone. Resizing your image with screen tone already on it will cause a moire effect on your printed image, which is something you don’t want.

Another tip for screen tones to avoid moire: If you are using Clip Studio Paint, DO NOT RASTERIZE YOUR TONE LAYER.

WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS: If you are unsure about how to use screen tones or don’t feel comfortable with them and the risks that are involved with having it come out right/wrong when it prints, just use solid gray-scale colours. It will look just as good, I promise. ♥ (That’s what I do because I personally hate using screen tones. They really are a pain if you have no idea what you’re doing.)

CREATING A PDF OF YOUR COMPLETED COMIC

After you’ve finished drawing your comic, it’s time to make a PDF.

Step 1) Make sure all of your pages are numbered correctly in their file names. DO NOT INCLUDE YOUR COVER OR BACK IMAGES. Those will be dealt with later.

Step 2) In Photoshop, go to FILE > AUTOMATE > PDF PRESENTATION.

Step 3) From there, click “Browse” and add all of your pages. MAKE SURE THAT THEY SHOW UP IN THE CORRECT ORDER IN THE BOX TO THE LEFT OF THE BROWSE BUTTON. If they don’t, you’ll have a PDF file that’s not in the correct order.

Step 4) Once you have all of your images chosen and in the correct order, press Save and then name your PDF file.

Step 5) A new window will pop up. There are only two things you need to change in this new window.

The first one is in the General Tab under Options. Make sure none of those boxes are checked.

The second one is in the Compression tab under Options. Make sure it is set to “DO NOT DOWNSAMPLE”.

Your Compression should be set to “JPEG” and Image Quality set to “MAXIMUM.”

That’s it for this window. Now you can click “Save PDF.”

PRINTING YOUR COMIC

Now that you have your PDF, it’s time to print your comic! (We’re still ignoring the cover for now. That will be last.)

Step 1) Open your new PDF file in Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Step 2) Go to FILE > PRINT…

Step 3) Set up everything as I have it set up here:

You may even want to click on your Printer’s “Properties” and “Advanced” to set up your printer for its best settings.

If you have a duplex laser printer, make sure it’s set to “Duplex Printing” so that it will print on the front and back of the page for you.

If it is NOT a duplex printer, make sure the printer is set to print on both sides of each page under “Properties.” Your printer should guide you with instructions on screen with how to re-insert each page as it prints.

Make sure the paper you are using is at LEAST 24lb paper. Anything less than that will be too thin and you’ll be able to see through each page.

PRINTING YOUR COVER

This is the part that costs money.

If you want your cover to look nice, your best option is to have it printed through a printing service online. My absolute fav is Pixartprinting.com. Their prices are very affordable, the quality is great, and the shipping is always free. Plus, on occasion, they’ll have great sales.

Step 1) The first thing you want to do is put your cover and back images on one image together.

Example: This is the cover for a fanfic book that I made.

Step 2) In order to do this, go to Pixartprinting.com and make an account.

Step 3) After you have your account made, click on “Brochures” from the left side menu.

Step 4) Set up your order like this:

Step 5) After you have your order set exactly how you want it, scroll down and pick your quantity option. I chose 100 copies.

Step 6) Click the template button and download their template for your file.

Step 7) Add your order to your cart and pay for it. After your order has been sent, they should now prompt you to upload your artwork. So now we gotta get that ready.

Step 8) Open Photoshop and place your cover and back onto the template you downloaded and make sure to delete the template guidelines. Also, be sure that your back is on the left side and your cover is on the right side.

MAKING YOUR BOOKLET

Now that you have all the pages printed out, and the covers have arrived in the mail, it’s time to fold each comic page in half evenly! Make sure all the pages are in order when you put them together to form your book.

After everything is together, it’s time to staple!

I use a long arm stapler to staple my books together (you can buy them online for about $12-$15), but this video gives a wonderful step-by-step process for stapling booklets, even if you don’t have a special stapler to do it. They even show you how to easily trim off excess edges. (To do this, I use a Fiskars Heavy Duty Die Cast Craft Knife because it has the absolute best blade I’ve ever used)

TA-DA!

When all is said and done, you should have a beautiful little fanbook on your hands.

If you wanna get really professional about it, you can always buy cellophane sleeves to protect your books for when you sell/trade them.

I order mine from Etsy. There are several wonderful sellers there who specialize in cellophane sleeves. My personal favs are:

October122017

Have you ever wanted to make your own enamel pin or embroidered patch? How about a sticker or a shirt? I used to work for companies that produced these items, and obviously made tons of my own designs. I wanted to share my knowledge with everyone that was scared to take the first step.

I made a post that covers these common questions:What kind of product is best for my art?What kinds of options are available for these products?What company should I use?What is the ordering process like?What about shipping?Where should I sell online?Should I crowdfund or not?Do you have any tips for self promotion?

October102017

15:09

After thinking all night long of things such as “the reason we live”, you grasped hold of something, so small you almost forgot about it. When morning comes, belonging to us, it’s a small ray of light. Right now it’s a small ray of Light.

The other week I did two small games with my friend @tao-pu! The rules were “we pick a character and a color for the other to draw in 15min” for the first game and “we pick an official art of a character for the other to copy in 15min” for the second game. I don’t draw particulary fast so I‘m quite happy with the results.

September232017

Hi, so a lot (like a LOT) of people ask me how to become a storyartist, how to introduce themself into art of animation and animation industry, how to tell stories in general. I don’t have a proper and quick answer for that but I wanted to share this link who is for me the best link ever all time for anybody who is interested in the art of storytelling in general, from comicbook, until film and cinema, writting, storyboarding of course.

It is FREE, and made very very generously by all the story departement which is the best in the world plus some of the Pixar directors themself (!). Don’t misjudge it : It is not because it seems simple and because it s free that it is useless or less effective than an expensive class . On the contrary it is MUCH BETTER than any expensive school in the world.

Even if you are an advanced art student or a pro you should watch it and do the training class as soon as possible on your spare time. These exercises are also very similar to the Pixar summer internship training. so it s really not bullshit. These video are accessibles from beginner but also great for professional even myself.

So please share this link as much as possible, seriously and make these exercises, train when you can, whatever age you are, whatever is your favorite medium, movie, comicbook, writing… HAVE FUN AND LOVE STORIES and thanks a lot Pixar story department, because they are awesome :)

September202017

September192017

Receding objects in perspective.

Have you ever been trying to draw tiles on a wall or on the floor in perspective, but notice that after you’ve drawn them, they don’t look like they’re all the same shape or size?

Well here’s a tutorial on how to fix that.

Your picture probably looks like this, right?

Well, i’m here to tell you how to fix that…Let’s start out with your basics.

The gray line is the horizon line, and the black dot is your horizon line. These are essential for the first steps of perspective. Without these, your perspective may turn out wonky and just not flattering to the eyes. Right now we’ll work in One point perspective.

Now let’s pretend we’ll be drawing a hallway. Draw a vertical line where the edge of the wall is.

Now, from the tips of the bottom and top of your wall, you’re going to need to draw a line extending all the way to the vanishing point. If you’re working in photoshop you could either use the line tool, or shift+click. If traditional, you’ll need to use a ruler.

Now that we have the wall that’s in perspective, it’s time to draw the rest of the lines. here I’ve drawn the wall facing us that’s closest, the ceiling, the floor line, and the end of the hallway. ASSUMING that you are working in one point perspective, all vertical lines are straight and parallel to each other, and all horizontal lines are straight and parallel to each other.

Now here I have erased the lines that extended beyond the back wall, and found the center point of the edge of the left wall. From there, you draw an extended line just as before towards your vanishing point.

now make a vertical line where your first “tile” is.

now this may be a little hard to explain. Now you’re going to draw a line coming from the corner of the wall, through the corner where your line meets the tile you just drew, and all the way to the ground line.

You see where these two lines meet? you’re going to draw a vertical line to the ceiling from here.

Like so!

Now rinse and repeat! you should have perfectly even spaced tiles now! And if you have tiles on the ceiling

Just draw horizontal lines connecting to the vertical lines!

Now just erase anyhing you don’t need and…viola! Perfect tiles in perspective!!

September172017

OH MY GOD whyyyy did no one tell me you’re supposed to send thank-yous after interviews?? Why would I do that???

“Thank you for this incredibly stressful 30 minutes that I have had to re-structure my entire day around and which will give me anxiety poos for the next 24 hours.”

I HATE ETIQUETTE IT’S THE MOST IMPOSSIBLE THING FOR ME TO LEARN WITHOUT SOMEONE DIRECTLY TELLING ME THIS SHIT

NO ONE TOLD YOU???? WTF! I HAVE FAILED YOU.
Also:
Dear ______:
Thank you so much for the opportunity to sit down with you (&________) to discuss the [insert job position]. I am grateful to be considered for the position. I think I will be a great fit at [company name], especially given my experience in __________. [insert possible reference to something you talked about, something that excited you.] I look forward to hearing from you [and if you are feeling super confident: and working together in the future].
Sincerely,
@mellivorinae

THIS IS A LIFESAVING TEMPLATE

YOU ARE WELCOME

My brother got a really great paid internship one summer. The guy who hired him said the deciding factor was the professional thank you letter my brother sent after the interview.

should it be an email? or like a physical letter?

email, you want to send it within a few hours at max after the interview if you can so it’s fresh in their mind who you are.

Confirmed! I interviewed for a job right after arriving in NY. The interview went incredibly well, and I went home and immediately wrote a thank you letter and put it in the mail. I had a super good feeling about this interview.

I didn’t get the job.

However, a few weeks later, I was called in to interview with another editor in the same company, and I did get that job. I found out later from the initial editor (the one who didn’t hire me) that he had planned to offer me the job, but since I didn’t follow up with a thank you letter, he assumed I didn’t really want it. He offered the job to another contender–but when he got my letter in the mail shortly after the offer had already been made, he went to HR and gave me a glowing recommendation. It was based on that recommendation that I got called in for the second interview.

So: send an email thank you immediately (same day!) after the interview. If you’re feeling extra, go ahead and send a written one too. OR go immediately to a coffee shop, write the letter, and return to the office and give it to the secretary.

Either way, those letters are important.

Pro tip: If you really want HR to develop a personal interest in your application, publicly thank them on linkedin. Just make a short post telling your network about how X recruiter really went above and beyond to make you feel welcome, or about how be accommodating and professional they were, or whatever. Make sure to use the mention feature so they’ll get a notification and see it.

Flattery will get you everywhere… and public flattery that might make its way back to their manager, doubly so.

Obligatory plug for one of FreePrintable.net’s sites: ThankYouLetter.ws. They have a whole section with interview thank you letter templates, and a page with specific tips for interview thank you letters. (There are also tons of other letter templates if you browse around a bit.)